


For a moment we get to be glorious

by piltovers_finest



Category: League of Legends
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-28
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-08-08 15:39:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16432223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piltovers_finest/pseuds/piltovers_finest
Summary: I couldn't utter my love when it counted, but I'm singing like a bird about it now. And I couldn't whisper when you needed it shouted, but I'm singing like a bird about it now.





	For a moment we get to be glorious

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jock_Casual](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jock_Casual/gifts).



> No warnings apply.

Viktor loved Jayce in ways he couldn't grasp or comprehend. It hurt him, and it elevated him, and it destroyed him, and it rebuilt him, and it made him weak and strong and all the things that mattered and all the things that didn't. It was a feeling so enormous that not even giving emotions up could smother it.

It did change, with time, warped by scorn and resentment. It was only natural, Viktor reasoned, for a lifetime of disappointment to make him bitter. It wasn't his fault that Jayce, when given the chance, betrayed him. It was the way of life when the heart was involved, and he would be better off without its petty and capricious whims. Nothing good had ever come of them, after all.

"There is something on your mind, creator," Blitzcrank says, standing tall by Viktor's side in his laboratory down in Zaun, and he corrects himself. One good thing did come out of his impulsive and idealistic youth, and it was Blitzcrank. And nothing else. "Is there anything worrying you?"

"In a way, yes," he circles Blitzcrank and bends down to reach a bolt that needs screwing on what would be its ankle. It buzzes with static, but doesn't comment farther. "Have you seen Jayce lately?"

"Yes," Viktor's fingers tighten around the wrench, yet he keeps on working. Refuses to give into his own weakness. He did ask, after all. "He was in Zaun this Monday. He has changed."

It pauses. Viktor twists the bolt one last time and stands. Blitzcrank is looking up at the ceiling, a hand on where its chin would be. Viktor waits, leaving the wrench on a stool while Blitzcrank chooses how it wants to speak.

"He said hello. He looked tired. He asked about you, too. I think that he misses you," it thinks, Viktor muses, and there's a sense of wonder to it all. To an artificial intelligence making that kind of statement, thinking, maybe trying to understand complex human relationships, attempting perhaps to fix them to the best of its capacity. Viktor feel proud of Blitzcrank like, he suspects, a father must do of a child. "I think that you miss him too."

Blitzcrank looks down, directly at him from above, and Viktor looks up, meets its eyes and finds that he is incapable of lying to it.

"What do you reckon I should do, given the situation?" he asks, partly to test Blitzcrank's thought process' boundaries and partly to have any kind of advice. Blitzcrank buzzes and hisses, drops a hand so Viktor can put his over it, and makes a drawn out metallic noise that sounds almost like a sigh.

"Humans are complicated. I do not know what you should do. You are unhappy. The other human is unhappy. How could you stop being unhappy? I am not equipped to solve this kind of problem," it says, voice booming, and Viktor hums. "But I know you, creator. You are good. You want to do good. You have been sad for a long time. Be good to yourself."

Viktor watches his hand, dwarfed and fragile as it rests on the tip of Blitzcrank's finger, and decides not to tell it that he's afraid of having forgotten how.

-x-

It's almost dawn and Viktor is awake. He has been thinking about what Blitzcrank told him for days, but hasn't reached a satisfactory conclusion. What an ambiguous statement considering what Blitzcrank is. It's as fascinating as it's frustrating, and he would like to know who taught it abstract thought to that extent but he's sure that might have been just Blitzcrank itself.

"This is ludicrous," Viktor starts at the voice, looking up from his workbench and at a woman enclosed in shadow crossing the door to his laboratory as he, albeit reluctantly, gets ready to fight. "Viktor, we need to talk."

When the green light graces her features, Viktor relaxes upon recognizing Camille. She stops by a window, several feet away from him, frowning as much as she's able to. It's rare to see her in any kind of mood.

"Do we?" he asks, and she clicks her tongue. "I'll take that as a yes. What's the matter?"

"It's Jayce," she spits the word with such disdain Viktor is worried for Jayce's life. Camille turns to him, eyes set on Viktor's, and he can see her lips twitch down for a fraction of a second. "He has requested to see you."

Viktor has been lured into traps before, and it does not sound like Camille's style but he isn't willing to rush into one.

"That isn't something he'd do," Camille sighs, in a way that makes Viktor himself feel tired.

"This is all so very delightful, Viktor, but I don't have time to lose with your fits of nostalgic longing," she steps his way, her sharp legs clanking on the floor, and Viktor huffs. "He's a gruelling imbecile but I expected better from you."

"Why send you?"

She quirks an eyebrow at him. "Blitzcrank is busy. Who else both knows Jayce and would brave Zaun at this hour and come out of it unscathed?"

Camille doesn't wait for him to answer before turning around and walking towards the door, only stopping to look at him over her shoulder until he stands.

-x-

Jayce has changed.

Standing in the street in front of his workshop, alone with him now that Camille is gone after guiding him there, Viktor observes and categorizes and tries to rebuild what he once knew about Jayce to avoid thinking about how he's feeling.

And Jayce has changed.

Viktor remembers how he was the last time he saw him. There was something about him, his stance, that was off-putting in how arrogant it was. As if he believed that the world owed him, that Viktor owed him. Eyes set on the future, a blind trust in his own judgment, often ignoring that he made choices with too much haste.

He's looking at a defeated man now, slouching his shoulders and unshaven, in a ratty t-shirt and old pants. Jayce doesn't look like the defender of tomorrow, but Viktor recalls that he never wanted to be so either. He's blocking the open door; yet it isn't a hostile posture, just a place to be at. There is not heat in his eyes. No weapons in his hands.

Viktor is at a loss.

"You came," Jayce says, after what feels like years of silence. His voice is hoarser than Viktor remembers and it breaks his carefully built composure, memories of times long gone bringing with them an onslaught of emotions that he's relieved to be able to hide behind a mask. "I didn't think you would. Not alone, at least."

"You requested to see me," he answers, and Jayce nods. "Is that all?"

"I requested to see you, not your mask."

Reluctant as he is to let Jayce see him, Viktor also feels as raw as he hasn't in years. There's love, and animosity, and blinding hatred, and scorn. There's the aching certainty of things lost that cannot be recovered. A lifetime of missed chances and mistakes.

"Why should I indulge you?"

Jayce shrugs. "Why not?"

It's the simplicity of it that gets to him. The nonchalance. The way Jayce doesn't try to fight or argue. He looks open, vulnerable. Viktor doesn't understand why.

"You've changed," he says, and Jayce laughs. It's something that Viktor hasn't heard in, perhaps, twenty years. It makes his heart clench and his breathing stutter.

"I do hope so. I've had some time to think," he reaches out then, and Viktor only avoids stepping back out of pride, to tap on Viktor's mask. "Please, Viktor."

He sighs as he reaches back to unclasp the mask, letting it drop to the floor. Jayce locks eyes with him the second he looks up, and breaking that contact isn't even an option.

"Why," Viktor breathes out as Jayce traces the line of his nose with a finger, not seeming like he's even listening to him. "Jayce. Why are you doing this."

"You needed me," Jayce mutters, and drops his hand with a grimace.

Viktor scoffs. "That's presumptuous."

"But you did. And I wasn't there."

"That happened twenty years ago."

"It's still happening," Jayce points at his arm, at his hand. At himself. He smiles, rueful and lopsided. "I'm tired of living like this."

Viktor closes his eyes and breathes through his nose as he counts to three to keep his emotions at bay. The sudden, blazing, rush of fury. The undercurrent of longing. The way he loves him, still, quiet and ridden with regret. When he opens them, Jayce sighs.

"I'm exhausted, Viktor, and you seem to be too."

"When haven't I be," he says, and Jayce shakes his head.

"I should have told you then, you know? That I loved you. When you...when everything happened. I might have done things differently."

It takes a beat for Viktor to understand what Jayce has said, and once he does he gets the sudden urge to punch him. He doesn't, but he's angry. Bitter. Can't fully believe what Jayce has said. Can't fully believe that it would have changed anything.

"You might have done things in the exact same way," he answers, and Jayce's smile is genuine then.

"Maybe. Who am I to say. All I know is that hating you is vexing, and I can't do it. Even Blitzcrank could tell that I couldn't. And I'm over it, I'm beyond trying to."

"My hatred is genuine," Viktor can only answer with the truth, and the second Jayce opens his mouth to talk he rises a hand, remembering Blitzcrank's words at the mention of it. "And I did love you, I somehow still do. Not in the same way, never in the same way. But admitting it could be what's best for me. Denying it hasn't done any good."

They stand in front of each other in silence. Jayce won't stop looking at Viktor's eyes as if they're a lifeline and he were drowning. There's desperation, Viktor can see. Muted and buried deep. A plea that Viktor isn't sure he can answer to.

"What now," Jayce says, and Viktor is as lost as he's ever been. There's too much to talk about to get it over with in the wee hours of the morning. There are too many emotions tangled together in regards to Jayce to make peace with them in a day. So he doesn't know, and he can't answer. "I know that look. It's okay. I just...I needed you to know. It was important that you knew. I was too stupid to say it then, might as well do it now."

"Why now."

Viktor knows that Jayce will understand that he means it both literally and figuratively. Why then, in that very moment. Why then, after twenty years. Why after they've fought. Why when things seem too bad to fix. Why when they don't know how to exist together in a way that isn't full of regrets, contempt and sadness.

"Because it has changed, and it has changed me, but it holds the same truth now as it did twenty years ago. What's different is me."

Jayce bends down and puts Viktor's mask on his hand as he stands, closes his own finger's around Viktor's wrist loosely. Viktor stares down at him in wonder.

"I am different, too."

"Yes," Jayce sighs, squeezes his wrist once and drops it. Viktor feels the absence of that touch like he's never felt it before. "Guess I'll let you go, for now."

'For now' sounds like a promise and Viktor despises himself for harboring hope, yet what else can he do if he wants to at least attempt to be good to himself. He'll have that, at least, and he'll reach out to Jayce and drag his organic fingers across his cheek and tuck a strand of hair behind his ear before he loses his nerve. Jayce closes his eyes to the touch, opens them only once Viktor's clasped his mask back on.

"I'm sorry," Jayce says, and Viktor would cry if he were alone. He has waited so long to hear him say that. What's the price he's going to have to pay for getting this? "We'll talk about this, okay? I really needed to...tell you. I had to."

"I understand," because he does. He's intimately familiar with the way emotions can become too big for his own skin and try to burst out of him without his control. It makes him weak. "I do."

Jayce nods, takes a deep breath, and pats his metallic hand once before stepping back.

Neither of them says goodbye. Viktor doesn't think they can stand it. He knows he can't.

He turns on his heel and walks away feeling Jayce's eyes following him until he's out of sight.

**Author's Note:**

> Tittle from "Four" by Sleeping at last, summary from "Shrike" by Hozier.
> 
> how many iterations of the same trope can i write? who knows!
> 
> i wanted to write something kinda bittersweet i guess, kinda sad but not really sad but not really happy either. so here it is. blame hozier i guess


End file.
